Chapter 26: Deep Conversations

March 17, 1983, Chicago, Illinois

"What do you think, now that you've slept on it?" Bianca asked as we dressed on Thursday morning.

"My initial reaction was negative because I knew what it was, though it wasn't as stomach-turning as the first time a girl kissed me before she swallowed."

"You got over that!"

"I did, and while you know I don't prefer doing that, I'm perfectly happy to kiss after a blowjob. I'm not a fan of kissing without swallowing, but if the girl gets off on it, I'll do it."

"Like last night."

"In for a penny, in for a pound!" I chuckled. "To answer your question, it didn't taste bad, just different. And it was pretty messy! My face and your thighs were coated with red! And you really got into it. Your blowjobs are always enthusiastic, but that one was the best one you've ever given, which is saying a lot!"

Bianca laughed softly, "So you'll be OK with doing it during my period, then?"

"Enticing! If it gets you off, I'm OK with it. You haven't ever pressed too far."

"Before we go downstairs, I should tell you Shelly wants to be with you one last time. Do you have any plans tonight?"

"No. I'm curious, but are your periods in sync?"

"That's an old wives' tale. Shelly and I are close, but our periods didn't shift once we started living together. Hers finished five days ago. Are you doing anything for Saint Patrick's Day?"

"I hadn't thought about it," I replied. "Not being Irish, it's not that important."

"Living in Chicago, it should be! They'll dye the river green today, and I'm sure people will want to go out for drinks."

"I have class so that basically puts the kibosh on going out with people from work."

"Teri is Irish, so she might ask."

"She's eighteen, so she can't even buy a beer in Illinois, and I'm not going to risk taking her to the bar in Bridgeport where I can be served. I'll be home after class."

"OK."

We finished dressing and went downstairs for breakfast. It was very early, and Shelly was still in bed, so Bianca and I ate breakfast together, and then I headed to work. It was a normal Thursday, I had lunch with Anna, and Mia asked to join us. It was the first chance I had to have an extended conversation with her and that confirmed that her only asset was her chest, and it was also obvious to me that she was already sleeping with Matheson.

At the end of the day, as usual, I left the office, had dinner with Violet, went to class, and then headed home. I greeted Bianca and Shelly, then went upstairs to change, with Shelly following me up the stairs.

"I hear you met someone," I said as I began changing clothes.

"A medical student at Rush Medical School," Shelly replied.

"I assume he has a name?"

"Perry Nielson. He'll graduate in May."

"How'd you meet him?"

"A party a few weeks ago. He asked me out, but he's doing what are called clinical rotations, so his schedule is something of a mess."

"I take it that's the hands-on training Allyson mentioned."

"Yes. He's just finishing a rotation in the ER. He plans to work in the ER once he graduates."

"Allyson mentioned something called the National Match and implied that you couldn't be sure where you were hired."

"He'll actually find out next week. His top two choices are here in Chicago — Cook County and Rush-Presbyterian. But this is just a first actual date!"

I chuckled, "Sorry. You know how my brain works."

"You immediately think about the short and long-term consequences and the potential sequences of events that might occur. That's how you do your job, so it makes sense that's how you see life."

"Allyson said first-year doctors work crazy hours."

"Thirty-six-hour shifts and around ninety hours a week. He warned me when he asked me out. But it's just a first date!"

"I'll stop trying to analyze your future beyond Friday! Bianca filled me in about the changes in your relationship."

"I just don't feel right having sex with her or you if I'm dating someone who I'm truly interested in."

"I totally understand. I take it you'll want your own room in the new house?"

"That would make the most sense if you're willing to give up the fourth bedroom."

I hadn't planned to use it except as a guest room. You'll need a bed and furniture."

"My dad will buy what I need."

"OK. How will you handle the next two weeks?"

"We'll share the bed but not have sex. Bianca is OK with it, and I hope you're OK with one more night. I'll spend the night with you, too."

"I'm absolutely OK with that. Shall we go watch the local news, then come back upstairs?"

We left my room and went downstairs, where we watched the 10:00pm news with Bianca, then said 'good night' and headed back up to my room.

"What's your pleasure?" I asked as we undressed.

"Slow and gentle," Shelly said. "Like our first time."

When we were naked, I helped her into bed and climbed in after her.

March 18, 1983, Chicago, Illinois

"Once more, long and slow?" Shelly asked when my alarm went off on Friday morning.

I'd anticipated her request and had set the alarm for twenty minutes earlier than usual. We had a final slow, gentle session that could only be described as lovemaking, then went to the shower. We washed each other in a loving fashion, then dried off, dressed, and went downstairs to have breakfast. Bianca was still asleep, so Shelly and I ate together. Once we finished, I grabbed my satchel, and Shelly walked me to the door.

"Thanks," she said, hugging me and giving me a soft kiss.

"I know I'm thinking ahead again, but I'm happy you met someone you think can fulfill your needs."

"You could, you know."

I nodded, "I know, but..."

"Until you're sure Bev isn't coming back, you aren't going to commit to anyone."

"Sorry."

"Don't be! She's a lucky girl to have someone so caring and so loyal. And you aren't letting major adversity deter you."

"I don't know about that," I said. "But it's true that nothing that has happened changes how much I love her."

"I have no regrets at all," Shelly said. "Not a single one."

I hugged her, we exchanged one final soft kiss, and I left the house to head to the Hancock Center. After I had made the morning coffee and spoken to Rich about overnight trading, I prepared my morning analyst report.

Once I'd completed that, I spoke with Mr. Steinem to arrange for long positions in gold and silver and discussed my plan to sell November futures. Once that was arranged, I returned to my research project on the relationship between money supply and precious metals prices, mining company stocks, and the gold/silver ratio.

As usual, I ate lunch at my desk, went to the gym with Anna, then, during the afternoon, reviewed the news, as well as the closing prices in Europe, all of which would inform what we did starting Sunday evening with Asian trading, though in some cases, so-called after-hours trades could be arranged on Saturdays. When we left the office, I confirmed with Anna that I'd see her on Saturday afternoon, then met Jack, Kristy, and Teri in the lobby of the building.

"The Berghoff, then High Road to China, if everyone is cool with that," Kristy suggested.

"What's the movie about?" I asked.

"Along the lines of the Raiders of the Lost Ark, but set in China around the time of World War I. Tom Selleck is the lead, and it's played as a comedy adventure."

"Sounds good to me. Teri?"

"Yes."

"Bus to the Berghoff, then back to Water Tower?" Jack asked.

"That makes the most sense to me," I said.

"I'm glad I paid the dime for the transfer," Teri observed.

That was a very nice feature of the CTA - for ten cents, you could transfer from L to bus or between bus routes, which saved having to pay full fare twice for a journey that required two separate rides. Transferring between most L lines in the Loop didn't require transfers, as you didn't have to leave the station.

We had a nice meal accompanied by The Berghoff's famed root beer, and all of us thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I'd spoken to Jack during the day, and he'd agreed that he and Kristy could take the L to his house so that I could have some time with Teri. We split up, and I suggested to Teri we get ice cream, so we headed to Oberweis.

"Would you explain how your moral system works?" Teri asked when we sat down to eat our ice cream.

"In reference to?" I asked.

"Your response to my question on Wednesday."

"First, I wouldn't call it morals because I don't think sex is immoral so long as everyone consents. I think 'ethics' is a better term."

"Whatever term you use, your standards seem inconsistent."

"Because decisions are never made in a vacuum. My response to you was based on the fact that we wouldn't be in agreement on what it meant. For you, at least as I see it, that simply meant advancing the timing, not changing the end result. The way you phrased the question made that clear to me.

"You asked if offering to go to bed with me would change anything, implying that you felt it would. Even if I attached no specific meaning to going to bed together, you did. It would, in your mind, be a complete and total commitment, no different from putting a wedding band on your left ring finger. Knowing that, and knowing I'm not ready to make that commitment, I'd have to say 'no', no matter how much I might want to do it."

"So what you're saying is that if it was 'just sex', you'd say 'yes'?"

"Hypothetically speaking, I would, assuming everything else was the same."

"I find it strange that you expect girls to just put out."

"But I don't," I replied. "I never expect it or assume that it will happen. If the girl says 'no', I accept that, and I never pressure anyone."

"But you'd stop seeing her if she said 'no', right?"

"Not necessarily. It all depends on the circumstances. Without getting into specifics, I have female friends with whom I have never had sex and, barring some cataclysmic event, never will. And that's fine. Where things between you and me went off the rails, so to speak, was with a committed relationship with a long period of enforced chastity. I totally understand and respect that, but it's not something for which I could sign up. You proposed a fairly radical solution to try to address the disconnect, and I agreed to consider it."

"But you think it's too soon, and you have other conditions."

"I've always said I could yield on the timing for the right girl, but I can't be flexible about my living arrangements for at least a year, if not longer, nor can I be flexible about my female friends, especially Violet."

And the real impediment, which I left unspoken — Bev. If she were truly out of the picture, things might be very different. But she wasn't, and until she was, I was more or less committed to not committing.

"It seems as if you feel I should yield on every important topic," Teri said, "while you yield on nothing — church, female friends, your choice of housemates, and sex."

"That's not how I see it," I replied. "I see it as we each make clear what's important to us and see if there's a way forward. In other words, I haven't asked you to yield; I've simply let you know what I believe is important and where I feel there might be conflict. It would be supremely foolish to start a relationship with someone when there were significant differences in values or views.

"I read a quote that's attributed to Albert Einstein, which I think is apropos — 'Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they are both disappointed'. What I don't want is to go into a relationship where my prospective spouse is counting on me changing my opinion. So, I'm not asking you to yield or change, just explaining my views and my desires."

"I see your point," Teri replied, "but I don't think it's quite that simple. That said, I don't expect you to agree with me."

"I don't, because it is that simple. Don't you think it's better to look for the person who best matches your needs and who has similar goals? Why settle for less, especially at twenty and eighteen? Maybe you think that you've found that, but if so, I'm confused as to why, given some fairly stark differences of opinion."

"Every single thing you do seems to be driven by pure logic with no room for emotions or anything else. Don't you have ANY feelings? Don't you acknowledge attraction?"

"I do have feelings, and I do acknowledge attraction; I just don't allow either of those things to override logic, especially when we're discussing a lifetime commitment."

"So I have two options?" Teri asked. "Give up or continue to date while you have sex with other girls, probably a lot of other girls? And that would be true even if I put out?"

"I wish you'd stop referring to it as 'putting out' as if it's something I'm demanding or something you should feel obligated to do. Neither of those is true."

"Can you see it from my perspective for once? You won't be my boyfriend unless I have sex with you, and even if I do, you're reluctant to go steady. Basically, you want to sleep with me with no commitments and no relationship."

"I'd counter that we would have a relationship, just not one that is exclusive. There are all kinds of relationships, and being an exclusive couple is simply one option. As for wanting to have sex, I've made it clear that I'm attracted to you, but I've also said we can date without having sex."

"But you'll have sex with other girls," Teri said.

She stated it as if it were fact, which, in all honesty, it was.

"My view is that what happens before a committed relationship is irrelevant. Perhaps you don't see it that way, but a girl's past behavior does not change my opinion of her, nor would I hold her to a different standard than the one to which I hold myself. I understand virginity is important to you, and that's fine, but I personally put no value on it one way or the other. As I see it, for me, having sex for the first time is like anything else you do for the first time."

"Seriously?"

"I didn't say you had to agree with me! In fact, I acknowledged that you don't! I said for me. My view is that the god of Abraham, that is, the god of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, has an unhealthy obsession with people's sex lives, which is eerily similar to the Greek and Roman gods' fetish for sex with mortals, and their keen interest in mortals' sex lives. I do understand that your faith is not the primary basis for your views, but it did inform them."

"You have some very strange views," Teri observed.

"Sex is a natural, normal biological activity that feels good and is necessary to propagate the species. It has no intrinsic meaning beyond that. Any meaning assigned to it is external and the product of religion, patriarchal societies, or a combination of both. I don't buy it. Buddhism, for example, simply requires one to treat their partner ethically, but beyond that, places no specific significance on sex.

"And I'm going to point out, once again, the significant differences in our worldviews. It's not my intent, or my goal, to get you to change your worldview, to stop you from going to church, or to stop you from believing that virginity is important. On the other hand, it is my intent to show the philosophical differences that would make a relationship on your terms difficult, if not impossible, for me; and one on my terms, difficult, if not impossible, for you."

"Wow," Teri said flatly. "No intrinsic meaning."

"No meaning beyond what we assign it. But remember, that does not mean I would ever agree with the cheater's claim that it didn't mean anything. It does, but only in the context of violation of your word and betraying your vows. Sex is just sex, but the context matters."

"That seems contradictory."

"Not at all. I can use a hammer to drive a nail or to bash in someone's head. In both cases, the hammer is neutral, being neither evil nor good. It's the person using the hammer in a way that harms another who is the problem. If I have sex with a hundred girls, and all of them are single, and they consent, there's no problem. If I have sex with one girl, and either of us is violating a commitment we made, that's a major problem."

"A hundred girls?" Teri asked, sounding unhappy. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"I threw that out as an extreme number. The only thing I will say is that I've been with more than one girl."

Teri was quiet for a few minutes while she finished her ice cream.

"I suppose there isn't anything I can say or do at this point," she said.

"I actually enjoyed the evening," I said. "I'll leave the ball in your court, and if you want to go out again, ask. If not, I completely understand."

"Then I suppose you should take me home."

I quickly finished my ice cream, and we walked to the parking garage to retrieve my car. I drove Teri home to Bridgeport, then headed for my house in Rogers Park. Nobody was home, which I had expected, as Shelly was on her date with Perry, and Bianca was out with some of her friends. I went upstairs, changed into sweats, then went to the kitchen to get a drink. I saw the light on the answering machine and pressed the correct sequence of buttons for it to rewind and play.